[Balance] Addressing low DPS

As it stands in the current state of the expansion balance is very weak.
I know some people are doing okay on the charts but the fact of the matter is we are at the bottom. Feral is doing insane single target DPS right now and we just can't keep up, not even on multi DoT fights.

I think a possible solution to our lack luster damage is to tweak the eclipse mechanic just slightly.
Our DoT's outside of an eclipse hit like a jar of piss, I think if the eclipse bar was changed to always be in either Lunar or Solar then we might just have the damage buff we need. This means removing the state of no eclipse completely and maybe tweaking how our mastery works just a little.

So say we have 100 solar energy once it gets to 0 it should suddenly tick over to 100 lunar and vise vera.

Alternatively a less dramatic change would be giving us a timed buff once we hit 0 letting us keep the effects of our last used eclipse state for 5 - 10 seconds.

I think this might be a better alternative than blizzard just giving us a straight damage increase to help us compete.

Yes, balance dps is very weak atm. http://simulationcraft.org/505/Raid_T14H.html show about where we are. Some may say that we have always been on the bottom of the simcraft meter on patchwerk fights, but this time there is no Dark Intent to give us a huge dps boost, and our multidotting is also weaker than in cata. I hope blizzard does something to address this or i see myself going feral next tier.

Very true, although last expansion we really held our own single target fights and then we would shine on multi DoT fights.
I'm fine with not being the BEST class out there, we are a hybrid but we should be able to pull our weight and actually rank with or above mages and warlocks if we are working our butt off in a fight. But atm even that is impossible.

Feral is looking more and more attractive but it's going to take me time to gear and perfect the 'rotation' of the spec and as my OS is resto that means rolling on two types of gear which will pisses off everyone (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻

I've been raiding the first 5 bosses(10man) now and I'm really happy with my dps and rotation, so many classes have been simplyfied and i like being able to play with the eclipse bar and Astral Communion. Depending on the fight I'm in the middle or at the top of the dmg-meters (Elegon is a really great fight for balance and so is Gara'jal)

The only boss which was annoying was Feng because of messed up eclipses and stuff while his earthquake (but AC helped alot to reach the next eclipse before he finished his cast).

I wouldn't gibe too much on SimCraft:

1. Their Ranking is for patchwerk fights and their calculations are in some way messed up.

I was also having a lot of trouble DPSing but that was mostly because I'm entirely new to the spec (rerolled from holy priest recently to have a go as DPS) so my rotation is a bit dodgy or I don't know what to use and when, and I think my spec isn't optimal either.

Is there someone who could maybe give me a couple of pointers based on our logs last night?

I was also having a lot of trouble DPSing but that was mostly because I'm entirely new to the spec (rerolled from holy priest recently to have a go as DPS) so my rotation is a bit dodgy or I don't know what to use and when, and I think my spec isn't optimal either.

Is there someone who could maybe give me a couple of pointers based on our logs last night?

I really wonder if I should go ahead and start farming / crafting myself a Feral set because being at the bottom feels silly.

Havnt really looked in your logs , but I looked at your armory. There are some things you should change.

1. Reach 15% Hitcap , you can achiev that by gemming or forging for hit/spirit. Dont gem 160 Int , use an 80Int/160 (Spirit/Haste/Crit) since they are stronger and still provide you the socketbonus.

2. Try to reach the next hastbreakpoint at ~5300 (5289 is the exact number but not sure atm).

3. Reforge any Hit or Haste which is too much into crit.

4. Dont use the mogu-rune trinket. If you weren't lucky enough for one the Caster-hero-trinkets try to get the healer trinket from the brewfest or buy an Ingi-Trinket for 1k and gem 600Hit, 600 Spirit,600 Haste/Crit .

If some good players are able to compete with other good players of other classes and specs, doesn't it mean that it's balanced? While I agree that our multi dotting has lost a lot of its former power, I don't think that we're in a bad spot at all.

It took some time to get used to what eclipse to be in during different fights. It is the core of our spec to master that. I played really really bad in terms of eclipse control on our Mogu'shan Vaults clear and still was dealing high dps with heroic dungeon gear.

And about simulationcraft? I think it lost its credibility after people did 10k more dps on fights that the optimal rotation with BiS gear could.

Havnt really looked in your logs , but I looked at your armory. There are some things you should change.

Thanks for the feedback. I've been following Ask Mr Robot for making sure my reforges are correct, and you are absolutely right about the gems as well. They're on my to-do list next, as well as a new trinket (or maybe I'll get one from Elegon tonight). I didn't know the engineering trinket was that much better than the Rune, either!

Edit: seems that my reforges were totally skewed when I equipped the new ring I got from Gara'jan last night so I'll go ahead and do another round of reforges tonight before raid and change a couple of gems while I am at it...

Thanks for the feedback. I've been following Ask Mr Robot for making sure my reforges are correct, and you are absolutely right about the gems as well. They're on my to-do list next, as well as a new trinket (or maybe I'll get one from Elegon tonight). I didn't know the engineering trinket was that much better than the Rune, either!

Edit: seems that my reforges were totally skewed when I equipped the new ring I got from Gara'jan last night so I'll go ahead and do another round of reforges tonight before raid and change a couple of gems while I am at it...

I tryed Ask Mr Robot and I feel like it was total crap what he told me... juts thats just my opinion.

Elegon is a really tough fight and is much harder than any of the first 4 bosses.

The Engi-Trinket gives 3x600 offstats , your rune only gives 751 and also has mastery which is our least desirable stat. Also the engi-trinket is very cheap , just saw it in the AH for 399G and Engi-Sockets for 60g.

Am I the only druid who's actually happy with our dps? ¬_¬ On all the bosses so far I've been the top side of recount, top 3 on some.

The question is, how much is everyone else in your raid doing? I've been beaten blue and black by our rogue who was doing about 60k (still not the best DPS you can do, but considering we're in mostly blues..) whereas I was fighting to get to 38k. That is a BIG difference (probably also in skill since, as I mentioned, I just rerolled).

edit: And the only boomkin thread on MMO CHAMP that I can find is the MoP discussion thread, and that doesn't really cover maxing DPS by giving builds or anything, and the Icy Veins guides seem to be off sometimes too.

Am I the only druid who's actually happy with our dps? ¬_¬ On all the bosses so far I've been the top side of recount, top 3 on some.

No, most are just complaining because they don't know what to do. 60k - 80k is the DPS we're supposed to do in blue gear in MSV bosses. Maybe even more once the eclipse management for fights is learned properly.